NHL 20 CHEL NOTES - HUT Deep dive

No Spend HUT

Would be great if there was a separate HUT for people who did not spend money on "coins" or "points" or whatever people buy to cheat actually building a team. While beating those kids who probably stole their mom's credit card is amusing, far too many games are won but just having a team full of 90+ studs (not skill), when I'm saving for a week to buy regular old PK Subban.

2

Replies

That’s what we really need to do, split the community even more. Buying points to spend them on packs is not cheating, building your team is the point of this mode. This year you could have 2 stacked lines just from free legends anyway, do your sets and objectives and you have Sakic and Modano, get those shots in and get McInnis. Then there’s the monthly legend every month. There are a lot of people that play hut that think the lower rated team has the advantage but you are obviously not one of those people. Anyone can build a decent team this year either spending cash or not.

That’s what we really need to do, split the community even more. Buying points to spend them on packs is not cheating, building your team is the point of this mode. This year you could have 2 stacked lines just from free legends anyway, do your sets and objectives and you have Sakic and Modano, get those shots in and get McInnis. Then there’s the monthly legend every month. There are a lot of people that play hut that think the lower rated team has the advantage but you are obviously not one of those people. Anyone can build a decent team this year either spending cash or not.

Yep. I mean the only thing whiners have to say regarding players and market and whatnot is that "they don't have the time to log in so many times per day". Yeah okay well enjoy playing the normal vs mode then with your so called limited free time.

I have job, wife, kid and 9 months old baby aswell and I still manage to log in atleast twice a day. Have to admit I have hard time playing three games some days but I can live with that.

The content and free stuff is brilliant. Gameplay is horrible though and should revert back to what it was.

That’s what we really need to do, split the community even more. Buying points to spend them on packs is not cheating, building your team is the point of this mode. This year you could have 2 stacked lines just from free legends anyway, do your sets and objectives and you have Sakic and Modano, get those shots in and get McInnis. Then there’s the monthly legend every month. There are a lot of people that play hut that think the lower rated team has the advantage but you are obviously not one of those people. Anyone can build a decent team this year either spending cash or not.

Yep. I mean the only thing whiners have to say regarding players and market and whatnot is that "they don't have the time to log in so many times per day". Yeah okay well enjoy playing the normal vs mode then with your so called limited free time.

I have job, wife, kid and 9 months old baby aswell and I still manage to log in atleast twice a day. Have to admit I have hard time playing three games some days but I can live with that.

The content and free stuff is brilliant. Gameplay is horrible though and should revert back to what it was.

I guess I was kind of lucky in a way, I had surgery beginning of September and was told by my dr to do as little as possible up until a couple of weeks ago. So I have had all day 5 days a week while my kids are in school, even after I go back to work after the holidays I’ll still get 3 monthly collectables a day. I have spent some cash as well, but thats my choice and it’s certainly not cheating. I agree about the gameplay, I’d much rather have it back the way it was day one than now.

I've built my team by grinding the challenges and collecting the free legends every month - spending my coins wisely early in the game to upgrade some of my Alumni to their Legend cards and then selling those for a profit - this has gotten me to a team almost full of 90+ studs and my mom's credit card is safe.

Don't forget all the rewards you can get from playing HUT Champs and Comp Seasons, all the coins you can get from completing the offline challenges, all the rewards you get from completing your progression challenges. If you're good at the game you will just have received perhaps 4 or 5 Xmas packs from the Comp Seasons finishing. With a bit of pack luck you could add 2 or 3 studs to your team based on that; or when the market rebounds sell them for some good coin.

I've played almost every day since September, built my team slowly and so what I have now is a team which maximises my little skill at the game - to have a team of snipers with shot ratings over 90 mean I've got more chance of winning the game playing hockey - not just skating around looking for a short side wrist shot like so many do in the current version of the game.

Just to put this in perspective though - I played my first game in Division 5 yesterday. I was playing a team with mostly Gold Rare cards vs my Legends and I lost 4-1. I couldn't enter the zone, was constantly loosing the puck to his pokes and lifts and he only took 2 penalties doing it really well. He ragged the puck a bit, but not enough to suggest it was his only play; but didn't score amazing offensive goals. 2 Breakaways from his good defence and two cross crease one-timers from his good forecheck - stealing the puck and my D out of position.

After the GG I had a look at his record - something like 65-3-2 in Division 1. My 90+ studs were blown away by a much better player of the game. One day I might have a chance to beat him, and then maybe my better team will have an advantage, but I'm under no illusions that I'll replace my Xmas Ristolainen with the Div 1 Tim Horton on D because I'm not good enough to beat the elite players that play in Div 2 and 1 who I will come up against if I can get that far.

Honestly if I'm pulling Div 1 players while I'm in Div 5 - I'm not sure I'm even going to get the points to stay here for one season. The only chance I've got is to make the most of my team and play to it's strengths - that's what HUT is about isn't it? Building a team?

I realize that I do not play well and as a super star professional can not hold their own, but such problems should not occur.
And, I think a forum is there to report problems and maybe receive "help" but NO nonsensical comments

I give EA credit for creating a robust reward system to both build a great team and amass coins just by playing. Sure you have play alot, and the grinding is tedious, but , if you focus you'll only going to get better at the game.

I give EA credit for creating a robust reward system to both build a great team and amass coins just by playing. Sure you have play alot, and the grinding is tedious, but , if you focus you'll only going to get better at the game.

Of all things to complain about, this not one of them...

Totally agree Nick - I came back to the NHL franchise this year on the basis of the positive reviews and the beta and have enjoyed playing the game and improving my skill as my team has improved.

i buy my team. i like HUT and i don't see the big deal with it. i'm not that good a player and not winning any players that require PvP online play or beating the CPU in anything other than Pro and that will take me a few tries to win. the current Candy Cane daily challenge is taking me 2 or 3 tries to get the win but i've hit all of them so far. Hoffman is the highest rated player i won in Challenges, the highest rated Thanksgiving was the 83 Rielly and only to the 82 Ristolainen so far.

since i'm not a very good player and don't win that much, i don't get coins unless i buy a pack and get a collectable or Specialty Player card to sell in the Auction House. i've tried to flip in the House but it's more time than i have.

i open 2 of the 8Hr packs most every weekday and try to get all 3 on saturday and sunday plus complete at least 1 set of Daily Objectives on the weekend, sometimes i get 3. I wake up at 4 to play 1 or 2 games every morning before i get ready for work and can get about 2 or 3 hours on weekend mornings.

Clarke and Farraro are the only monthly legends i've earned and Clarke was only because the 4 cards we got from the update errors at the start of the month and the ability to reroll previous month's cards into December cards. i had over 100 from September, October and November and picked up Clarke last weekend. i was 3 cards short of Nieuwendyk and ONE card short of Roenick thanks to EA servers being down and unable to sign in to HUT the week of Thanksgiving to get the 8Hr packs after work.

i just passed Milestones for Objectives, Games, Shots, Stars and one other to get Modano, Theo Fleury, MacInnis, Claude Lemieux and Andy Moog all in the last couple weeks so i'm getting some 90s now and feeling good about my chances vs the CPU. i should complete the goals and hits Milestones sometime in January but only about half way to Sakic and Chelios and planning on them in March or so.

i do the Legend Sets but need Rare Golds to roll into Gold Collectables and buying packs is the only way for me to get those as well. i roll the silvers into rare silver into golds into gold rares and so on. that does help me get to Sakic so i'm happy to do it. so far i've upgraded Probert, Larionov and Naslund to legend and working a bunch more.

i like HUT, if it were a suscription based model it would be better and if they added more vs CPU challenges even better yet.

I buy my team... i like HUT, if it were a subscription based model it would be better and if they added more vs CPU challenges even better yet.

Well said Jeff - I'm intrigued by the idea of a subscription model - how do you think it would work? £/$5 a month for how many packs for example, or perhaps for a certain number of coins?

Also what other CPU challenges do you want? I still haven't worked my way through all of the original CPU challenges yet - I realise that you may not be able to complete many of the if you struggle to beat CPU Pro teams but then so did I in September and as I was able to build my team I also improved my skills but I still need to work on D and preventing 2 on 1 breakaways.

By the way - after I had upgraded some of the cheaper legends I started to calculate how much it would cost me (in HUT coins not pounds sterling) to do the rest so I could get a 99 Gretzky or Mario. I figured out that I could buy the legends on the market place cheaper than I could make them and since then I have added Lafontaine and Selanne to my team from the market place.

The one real purchase I did make who has been on my team a long time was Leetch from one of the early legend packs which cost £'s. I managed to sell him for a large number of coins recently and from those was able to complete the Xmas sets for 95 McDavid and 93 Kucherov, with coins left over to buy Xmas Duncan Keith as a replacement D. These purchases have helped me to build a strong team, and activate both the 'For the Boys' and 'Burner' team synergies.

I buy my team... i like HUT, if it were a subscription based model it would be better and if they added more vs CPU challenges even better yet.

Well said Jeff - I'm intrigued by the idea of a subscription model - how do you think it would work? £/$5 a month for how many packs for example, or perhaps for a certain number of coins?

i'm thinking an anual price that would replace buying the new game every year. you'd just be buying a roster update for the Seasons/Play Now modes and/or the new season of HUT. i think EA (and other game makers) hurt themselves with all the changes they make to game play each year when those that i know (including me) are only seeking the new and current rosters or new and current HUT challenges.

take 19 as example and i think there were 3 editions with different perks, i'd keep the price points and perks you get. this also gives new players a baseline for gameplay and then as years go by you can actually improve as a video game player and be a more competitive opponent. i'm all for resetting the teams where we all start from nothing every new season but i lost 34K coins from NHL 18 and think that should roll over.

another reward for returning subscribers could be you get coins or packs based on the team you built the previous season. 95+ gets this Pack or number of Coins/Points, 90+ that pack and so on. or a reverse of the real NHL draft and a 95+ team earns this many selections of a new card type like Legends or Alumni this year.

Also what other CPU challenges do you want? I still haven't worked my way through all of the original CPU challenges yet - I realise that you may not be able to complete many of the if you struggle to beat CPU Pro teams but then so did I in September and as I was able to build my team I also improved my skills but I still need to work on D and preventing 2 on 1 breakaways.

NHL18 was my first video game of any kind since NHL2K2 for Dreamcast and i thought i remember 18 having a different set of challenges scheduled for every day. like Tuesday was Flashbacks and Wednesday was Primetime and so on. i might not remeber that correctly and didn't get 18 until Xmas last year so some things might not be that different but the daily challenges just started this month with the candy canes and i thought there was a new 4 game set every day.

i'd also like to see a shortened time frame on the current Original 6 challenges to a week and have one for each team in the league, not just the O-6.

grinding the Legend sets is what i enjoy the most, i get to 20K and i buy a Gold Collectable. i get 5 Gold Rares and i reroll into a Gold Collectable and so on.